Menahem Pressler

Distinguished Professor and Dean Charles H. Webb Chair in Music

School of Music, Indiana University, Bloomington

Menahem Pressler, has established himself among the world's most distinguished and honored musicians. His career spans over five decades beginning with the award of first prize at the Debussy International Piano Competition in 1946. Thus followed a debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy. Subsequent performances included the orchestras of New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Dallas, San Francisco, London, Paris, Brussels, Oslo and Helsinki.

In 2007 Pressler was appointed Honorary Fellow of the Jerusalem Academy of Music. In 2005 he received the German Deutsche Bundesverdienstkreuz (Cross of Merit) First Class, Germany's highest honor, and France's highest cultural honor, Commandeur in the Order of Arts and Letters.

Pressler has received honorary doctorates from the University of Nebraska and the North Carolina School of the Arts, five Grammy nominations, Gramophone magazine's lifetime achievement award, Chamber Music America's Distinguished Service Award, and the Gold Medal of Merit from the National Society of Arts and Letters. Other honors include German Critics "Ehrenurkunde" award, election into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, England's Record of the Year, and Musical America's 1997 "Ensemble of the Year." He teaches master-classes world-wide and serves on the jury of Van Cliburn, Queen Elisabeth, and Artur Rubenstein competitions.

The 1955 Berkshire Music Festival saw Pressler's debut with the Beaux Arts Trio, and quickly established his reputation as an internationally revered chamber musician. Other collaborations have included the Juilliard, Emerson, Guarneri and Cleveland Quartets. In addition to over fifty recordings with the Beaux Arts Trio, Menahem Pressler has compiled over thirty solo recordings. The Beaux Arts Trio's mark in American culture is far-reaching; they play an ongoing role in cultural and educational centers with annual concert series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Celebrity Series of Boston and the Library of Congress.

Office: (812) 855-1234; E-mail: pressler@indiana.edu